...And Send It Soaring...

Another from the collection of Northwest poetry:

The Body of Christ

Lenae Nofziger

- Emily, Age 13

The morning she died, I left the church

early, before the sun rose. I don't know

what made me go. My sore knees. My throat

raw with whispered prayers I heard the echo

all around me. I remember that sanctuary

filled with believers, their lips moving,

their faith so fierce, I, too, could not doubt

that my mother would stand, the swelling

in her arm faded, the snake's poison defeated

by prayer. And so I went outside to the deep

blue sky, where the first animals awake were flying:

a line of geese heading north, their wings

as perfectly aligned as the stitches in a buttonhole.

And I imagined the sky as a coat

and wondered who it protected:

God? Or us from God?

And when I turned back, the mouths

inside the church had changed

to solid lines. The men walking into the morning

did not meet each other's eyes, and

the women were left inside with the body.

It's fun googling people I don't know: apparently she teaches classes at a college up here and you can find students' opinions of her on ratemyprofessor.com. It certainly puts a person in my mind instead of just a speaker of the poem.

But what I like about this one is the line breaks ("And so I went outside to the deep/blue sky...") which add a lot of depth, not to mention underplaying the maudlin and tragic elements of the plot (so to speak) which could really get overwrought.

One thing that sort of stumps me, though, is the title. It has a loose connection to the poem, certainly, with a church service and the natural world and protection of and from God. But if you hadn't seen the title you'd never assign it to this one. I don't mind it - it's not like a pop song where your title is just whatever words happen to occur over the hook so people will remember it.

A book I once read described the title as a kite flying over the poem, giving a signifier to somewhat identify what's on the other end of the string. In this case when you follow the line from the kite to the hand that holds it you're getting a bit of a surprise.